His Best Friend
by wackywhateleys
Summary: When Randall starts spending too much time with a new friend, Henry decides he has to set things right. Back to the way they used to be. Just him, and Randall, and no extra kid. (Oneshot.)


_(I needed to get this out of my system.)_

Master Randall had a new playmate.

Henry tried to suppress the jealousy as it welled up inside him—after all, it wasn't his place to feel such things. But still—he had always thought that he owned one thing in the world, and that was Master Randall's friendship. He had treasured that, and taken such good care of Master Randall for so long, that surely Master Randall knew of it by now.

And yet, suddenly it was like Henry had never existed. At school, Randall only wanted to sit with the new student, who had moved here just a short time ago. Henry had no other friends. He just watched from afar as Master Randall talked to this Other Boy, and felt the jealousy tear him up inside, like a thousand clawing hot hands.

After school, when they walked home together, Master Randall would talk about the Other Boy. Henry tried to start new conversations, but Randall was Randall and eventually the topic would circle back to what he wanted to talk about: this Other Boy, and what he was like and what he did. Henry had never felt so sick and angry in his life. It was a feeling he didn't like. He knew he wasn't supposed to _want_ things. But still, as the weeks passed and still Master Randall didn't come back to his side…he felt as if he was going to throw up.

The Other Boy had curly hair that needed a trim and bright black eyes. He was quiet and liked to read. He and Master Randall were the smartest kids in the class, so even though the two of them were so different, they hung out together. Henry's second-hand archaeological knowledge couldn't keep up with everything this new boy knew on so many different topics. He sat alone and watched the two of them talk together, and wished so badly that there was a way to turn Master Randall's attention back to him again.

It was when Henry was cleaning a goose for dinner that the idea came to him. A simple idea, but so daring and so unlike him that for a moment he questioned his own mind.

_I can't do that, _he told himself, horrified. _I'd get in so much trouble! Master Randall would hate me._

But then he realized:

_No one has to know it was me._

Master Randall was always talking about all the relics that could be hidden out in the forest, and no one really had gone back there for a long time. If something was hidden back there—not something big, like the Norwell Wall, but something much smaller—then it would be a long time before anyone stumbled upon it.

Henry handled a heavy carving knife; it was pointed at the end but the blade was wide. As he held it, the ideas came to him faster and faster, he decided to borrow it for a little while.

Coming out of his shell was hard, but Henry managed to talk a few times to the Other Boy, trying to get closer to him. The boy had a name—it was Hershel—but Henry forgot it quickly, let it slip from his mind. This Other Boy was boring and bland, and utterly without the glow of Master Randall.

"I wonder," Henry said one day at recess, while Master Randall was fetching Angela, "has Master Randall already showed you the Norwell Wall?"

The Other Boy laughed nervously. "He's only talked about it. I would like to see it, though."

"Allow me to show you," Henry said. "It's only a short walk through the woods. Perhaps after school?"

The Other Boy considered, and at last obliged.

Henry told Master Randall that his new friend was unavailable, that he had had to go home directly after school; and Henry's usual duty was to do the shopping, so he had his excuse. Henry hated going behind Master Randall's back on this, but he vowed that this would be the only time. After today, there would be no need for lies, or jealousy, or anything nasty like that; it could be just as it had always been, just him and Master Randall, playing together again.

In his schoolbag, Henry hid the knife. He had never killed anything bigger than a bird.

"Are you Randall's brother or something?" the Other Boy asked as they walked. "I keep seeing you two walking to school together."

"I am a servant in the Ascot household," Henry said.

"Ah. Well then," the Other Boy said, and they walked on in silence. They passed through the whole town, passed everyone they knew. Or, everyone Henry knew. This boy was a stranger.

The Other Boy tried to make conversation a few more times, but it always dead-ended: they were both quiet people, and had nothing to say. Not on the surface, anyway. Henry's head was clear, but his stomach was swirling with anticipation and apprehension and excitement and disgust—not so much disgust at what he was going to do, but disgust that this abysmal boy was still trying to be friendly with him.

Because Henry had no intention to spill blood in front of his master's wall, he stopped the boy when they were far enough into the woods.

"Please, follow me. There's a shortcut which is much quicker," he said, and the Other Boy, who couldn't know the area like a native would, followed him with only a reluctant shrug.

Henry's heart pounded with every step that he took off that path. A hundred heartbeats later, he pulled the Other Boy to the ground, and they fell with a cry.

The Other Boy was sturdier than Henry was, but Henry sat on him and used all his meager weight to keep him to the ground.

"H-hey," the boy said, "what're you doing?"

Henry slid the knife out of his schoolbag and held it with a practiced hand. The Other Boy yelped and struggled to cover himself, to get away.

"Don't make a sound," Henry hissed; the commanding tone was new to him. To punctuate his point, he pinned the boy's outstretched hand to the ground with the knifetip. The arm twisted back; the fingers curled. The boy screamed.

Henry put a hand over his mouth. "Do that again and I'll slit your throat."

He felt the boy's quick, jerky, sobbing breaths wracking the body between his legs. The thing he had trapped was doing everything he could to fight the pain, to oblige. For the first time in his life, Henry had control.

"Tell me why Master Randall likes you so much," Henry said, pulling the knife from the Other Boy's hand and putting it against his throat. The Other Boy pressed his bleeding hand against his pants to try to stop the bleeding. He sniveled and cried.

"I-I-I don't know," he sobbed. "I mean, he just started talking to me one day, I don't know…"

"Liar," Henry said, feeling sick jealousy crawl up from deep inside him again. He wanted to throw it up all over this pathetic teary-eyed wreck.

"Please," the Other Boy said, and then Henry thrust the knife into him. When he covered the boy's mouth again, he bit Henry's fingers, drew blood.

"You should have never made friends with Master Randall," Henry said.

Really now the problem was already fixed, wasn't it? The boy would die now no matter if Henry stabbed him again or not.

Henry drew a line down the boy's torso with the knife point, but it wasn't sharp enough to cut through cloth, so he undid the buttons of the boy's shirt with one hand. "You should have never come here at all." He cut around the inside of the boy's ribcage. "Master Randall is_ my_ friend…" With a turn of the knife, he exposed gleaming organs. "And only mine."

He wasn't even looking at the boy's face anymore, just enjoying the sound of his own voice.

"Master Randall just happens to have a problem with getting mixed up in things he shouldn't. But that's alright, because Master Randall has a best friend to help him out. And that's me." His hands were red. "Just me." He cut crosses inside the boy. "Not you."

Henry stood up, staggered into the woods, and vomited. Then he came back and looked at what he had done. Life was leaving the body on the ground. Blood soaked the dirt.

If Randall were there with him, Henry felt he would have cried. But because no one was there to watch him, he felt only stillness. His jealousy and anger had leaked out with the blood. Now he was ready to go home, and change clothes, and play with Master Randall until it was nighttime and they had to go to bed. The hot clawing hands inside of him were gone.

He didn't have the will to interact with the body any more. Instead of burying it, he dragged it to the river and dropped it from the bridge. Then he washed off the knife and his hands, and headed home. When he emerged from the woods, Stansbury was back to normal.


End file.
